by Jeff Gluck, USA TODAY Sports

by Jeff Gluck, USA TODAY Sports

AVONDALE, Ariz. - One week after she shined under the Daytona 500's bright spotlight, Danica Patrick's next race didn't go as planned.

Patrick blew a tire and smashed into the wall during Sunday's Phoenix race, avoiding injury to her person but severely damaging her car.

She hadn't been doing very well - Patrick was running in the mid-to-high 20s most of the day - when her tire suddenly exploded coming off of Turn 4 on lap 185 of 316.

Her No. 10 car headed straight for the wall at full speed, and she crushed the right side, then bounced off and hit David Ragan's No. 34 car while coming back down the track. The contact sheared the sheet metal off the driver's side of Patrick's car.

"Thank God for SAFER barriers," Patrick said of the so-called "soft walls" which are installed at every NASCAR track. "I'm glad I didn't drive in the days without them, because they're very important."

Patrick, who became the first woman to lead the Daytona 500 last week and finished eighth, was 39th at Phoenix as a result of the crash.

She felt like the team was making progress, she said, though it was "not an awesome day by any means." Patrick pointed to her ability to stay on the lead lap more than halfway through the race as the sign of a decent day and had hopes of a top-20 finish. But that all disappeared when she hit the wall.

"Anytime you have a tire blow, you're at full speed when it happens," she said. "You don't anticipate, you don't slide very much, there's no way to slow the car down. They always feel pretty big, and whenever they go in head-first, they feel even bigger."